What the world can really use more of is hope, forgiveness and redemption, so when I Can Only Imagine, based on the eponymous song which became the most-played radio single in Christian music history, opened in theaters earlier this year, it struck a chord with movie-going audiences, who were moved by its story about the power of faith, love, and family.

I Can Only Imagine is based on the real-life story of Bart Millard (played in the film by J. Michael Finley), the lead singer of the Christian band MercyMe, and the trials and tribulations he experienced with his troubled father Arthur (Dennis Quaid) that inspired him to write the song.

Their story illustrates that nobody is ever too far from God’s love for a transformational experience and that is what Millard talks about in this interview: How hard it was to re-live the abusive moments with his father, how they both found redemption, how forgiveness was easier than he thought, why the song speaks to millions, and more.

The song was such a huge hit, but how did the movie happen?

I was approached about eight years ago. A producer out of Hollywood heard me talking and she thought there might be a movie there. We didn’t believe her. We were like, “Okay, all right, whatever.” So, for about five years, she would call once or twice a year saying, “We haven’t forgotten,” and we’re like, ‘Okay, good luck.” Then it was probably three years ago when the Erwin brothers got involved and scripts started taking shape.

Even though I had agreed to it, I was like, “Oh, shoot, this is really going to happen. The stuff I’ve tried to bury most of my life, I’m about to dig up and put on a big screen.” So, I was really nervous. Even though eight years feels like a lifetime, it took every second of that to get to where I was in a healthy enough place to where I could stand behind the movie and support it.

But I love how it turned out. I wish I could say it was my idea, but somebody smarter than me came up with it.

Did you actually watch filming, or did you wait to see the finished product, because it had to be heard to re-live some of the scenes with your dad?

We got Dennis the last couple of weeks of filming. His was the last part to be filled. And so, I went up the day he started and hung out for a while. And, yeah, it was pretty weird. No one really tells you how to prepare for something like that. I remember getting there — I got there a little bit late — and they were like, “Hey, we’re about to go into the scene, you can meet Dennis afterwards.”

So, I sit down in one of the director’s chairs and the first scene that I see is when my dad’s diagnosed with cancer, and it was like, “Man, this is like a gut punch.” Even though they’re pretending and it’s not my dad, just seeing Dennis wearing my dad’s name on his work shirt and all that kind of stuff, it really got to me. Then we went from that to the scene where he breaks the plate over Bart’s head, and I was like, “You know what? I think I’m going to go for a drive. You all let me know when you’re going to hug it out, or do something that’s a little lighter.”

So, I literally got in my rental car and drove around until they were through those scenes. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t think it would hit me like that, just because it’s technically not real, but it stirred some emotions that I’ve spent a long time trying to get rid of. I knew we were on to something because of what I felt, but it didn’t make it any easier.

How accurately does the movie capture your story? Can we call it a true story, or should we say based on a true story, because there is a lot of license taken?

I would say based on a true story because they’re trying to cram 25 years of my life into two hours, so there definitely are some liberties taken.

I remember reading the script going, “This isn’t how it happened.” Most the stuff looks like what happened. Maybe six months to a year in the movie might have been a five or six-year period in real life. But the moments where my dad’s really abusive and the redemption story itself, we were very specific in those because I didn’t want to be guilty of embellishing the abuse just for the entertainment factor, and I didn’t want to take away from it because I didn’t want to water down the redemption story.

Those parts of it were the most important parts to me. My high school colors were not green and white, they were red and black, but that stuff, who cares? So, there were little things that weren’t exact, but I always say the parts that mattered the most to me, the core of it is very true. I don’t know how most of them are done, but I think they did a pretty good job of walking that line, for sure.

I talked to Dennis when the film first came out, and he said it wasn’t just Arthur that was redeemed, but also you. Do you agree with that, and if so, in what way?

I totally do. I mean, there’s a scene in the movie where Bart’s going to come back home and make things right with his dad and he gets there and his dad’s already on a journey of making things right. For some reason, Bart is upset about it. I remember when we first screened the movie for people early on, they were like, “We are confused by that.” They almost took it out, and I was like, “No, that’s a real emotion.” I had this weird sense of entitlement that I thought that if my dad was going to change, that I earned the right to be his savior. I was going to be the one to change him.

So, when I got home and his heart was already changing, I was almost jealous or upset about it because I thought that I had earned the right to do that, to be that person in his life.

More than anything, whether it’s my dad’s fault or whatever, I wouldn’t allow myself to be loved. I lived most of my life thinking that I was unlovable, that I was broken goods, or whatever. So, there’s definitely a redemption side of becoming comfortable in my own skin and realizing that, “Okay, as horrible as this has been, and I wouldn’t want to re-live it again ever, all of this is part of who I am today.” Coming to terms with that — I think the movie hints at that — but that’s a redemption story. It’s been going on for most of my adult life.

This also a story of forgiveness, and it’s something that I’m really bad at.

Yeah, most of us are.

I think it’s so commendable that you got to the point that you were able to do that. How did you begin to find that within yourself?

I think it’s different when you’re a son and all you want is the approval of your father. I have a dog and no matter what, if I ever did anything horrible to the dog, which I haven’t, but if I did, somehow that dog always comes back, like, you’re still the greatest thing ever. At times, I felt like I could relate to that as a kid.

My dad would do horrible things to me, but I was so desperate for his affection and his approval that I would keep coming back. In fact, his MO was he would beat me, and then there’d be about an hour, and then he would call me in and be very remorseful and heartbroken. He would literally say, “I’m sorry,” almost every time. And as a kid, I would sit in his lap and we would watch TV. I was so starved for that, that there were points in my life to where I would do things to cause the punishment because I knew what was to come afterwards. That’s how desperate I was for it.

So, that being said, mustering the strength to forgive my father wasn’t that hard. The only hard part was the older I got, the more I could process things, and I think sometimes our age and our experience gets in the way of forgiveness sometimes. Somehow it’s harder to let things go. It took me probably a couple of years before he passed away, and spending so much time with him when he was sick, that I got to the point to where, as long as there is trust that the person has changed, then forgiveness is pretty easy.

The issue is that the trust thing takes time. I trusted that he was a different person. I wanted it so badly and I had been duped many times before because it’s all I wanted. So, to finally see him genuinely change near the end of his life, it was kind of a no-brainer. People are like, “I don’t know how you did it,” and I was like, “Oh, you would have known if you were there because it’s something you wanted so badly.”

So, what do you hope people take away from this?

I think everybody’s got someone in their life that they think is out of the reach of God, or unchangeable, unreachable, if you will, and maybe we think that way of ourselves sometimes. I want people to walk away realizing that as long as there’s breath in our lungs, our story’s still being written. Who are we to assume that something’s going to end one way or the other?

As long as our heart’s beating, there’s a chance for us, or whoever that person is in our life, and I don’t know how the story turns out, but I do know that no one is out of the reach of God, and that anybody’s capable of change. All we really have is hope, and if we lose that, then we’re in bad shape. So, if people walk away with that, then it’s all worth it.

What I love about your story is that you’ve come through it all and you’re now able to support your family doing the thing that you love. Would you describe it as living your dream?

Living the dream’s pretty good. I would say it’s the greatest job in the world. For me it’s being able to make music, which I absolutely love, and it’s hope that the music makes a difference in people’s lives somehow. People have asked, “If your dad was here, what would you say to him?” At first I thought I would show him all this crazy stuff that MercyMe has done — the movie and how crazy it is, but then I realized, “No, the thing that I would actually be most proud of, and I know that my dad would be most proud of, is that I’ve been married for 20 years and I have five amazing kids, and I couldn’t be happier.”

That’s something that he didn’t know. He always thought — and he blamed himself — that I was destined to be the same product he was, and my brother, too. And the fact that we’re both married and have amazing families is something he’d be most proud of, no question.

You mention hope. Is that why the song resonated so much with people, because it is a hopeful song?

I think so. When I wrote it, it was after my grandmother, at the grave site, said, “I can only imagine what your dad’s seeing now,” and I became obsessed with heaven, because it was easier to think about that then seeing an empty bedroom at home. I was almost like OCD obsessed. I would write on everything I could get my hands on and just think about him being in a better place for years.

Why does this song connect? I think it’s because there’s no agenda in the song, I’m not shoving anything down anybody’s throat. In fact, all I’m doing is pretty much asking the same questions that anyone else has wondered.

I learned really quickly when the song took off years ago, that there are people that have never darkened the door of a church in their lives and have no desire to, but everybody hopes that whatever’s next is something better. And if they’ve lost a loved one, it’s hard not to go there and just wonder. I think the beauty of the song is that I’m hoping like everyone else is, and not trying to act like I have it all together and have nswers that no one else has. I’m just trying to figure it out, you know?

I Can Only Imagine is availabe on Digital, Blu-ray™ Combo Pack (plus DVD and Digital), DVD, and On Demand from Lionsgate.

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